Our school participated in the LTLL training on the 15th and 16th March 2011. Over these two days we came up with focus areas and reflected deeply as a whole staff. We were unable to complete our action plan during these days so since coming back to school, I have completed a draft action plan for our focus areas. Our focus areas include:
· Focus 1: The Transformed Learner
· Focus 2 & 5: Teacher as Leader & Educative Leadership (Leadership for professional learning) - we put these two focus areas together because we thought they married up very well for what we want to achieve.
· Focus 6: Authentic Learning (Assessment FOR and AS learning)
I will be taking the draft action plan to a staff meeting so we can discuss it and make any necessary changes. I am also currently working on a draft time table to go with our action plan. When both have been completed, I will upload them on our page.
The wheels are in motion and there is an excited buzz in the air as we begin this process!
After our LTLL Professional Development days, together we came up with practical ideas that will help us with Focus 2 (Teacher as Leader) and Focus 5 (Educative Leadership - Leadership for professional learning). As part of this we came up with the idea of using the expertise of our fabulous staff and allowing them the opportunity to run workshops in the areas that they are so called 'gurus' in! The staff will identify areas that they would like to improve their knowledge and skills in and the Workshops will be organised according to the requests of the staff. The Workshops will be scheduled into our LTLL Term Overviews throughout the year. Please see the link below for the Teacher Survey.
It has been a while since my last post on the Wiki! Term 2 was an extremely busy term and we have achieved a lot during that time. The staff completed the LTLL Teacher Survey and identified areas in which they would like Professional Development to improve their knowledge and skills. The link below is the results of this survey.
During Week 6 of Term 2, I facilitated a staff meeting to inform the staff where we were up to in regards to our LTLL Project. At this staff meeting, we also participated in a hands-on professional development opportunity (Workshop 1 - IWB Training). This PD opportunity allowed staff members in our school to share their knowledge and skills in this area with those who had asked for more PD opportunities with IT (IWB). It was very successful!
A major initiative that we have implemented into St Laurence's as part of our LTLL Project is 3 Way Reporting/Learning Journeys. We found that this initiative fitted in very well to all the LTLL Focus Areas that we had decided on as a staff. We started this initiative in Term 1 across the whole school. Each class focused on the individual student reflecting about their learning and taking home a learning journey to share with their families. After the students' learning journeys went home in Term 1, the parents completed a survey to provide feedback on the process. Term 2 saw the inclusion of the 3 Way Reporting process. This involved the student, their parent/s and their teacher. The students took their families on a journey of their learning in their learning environment. After the 3 Way Reporting in Term 2, parents, students and teachers were all surveyed about the process. There is a link below of each survey that was asked to be completed.
Once the surveys were completed and returned, the data was collated. Some very interesting and positive findings were evident. Below are links to the parent and student survey results. I have also included links to the comments made by both the parents and students.
The teachers from Forbes have just brilliantly completed their mid-point presentation. The participants and audience were all energised and enthused by the description of their learning journey. The following is a summary of some of the affirmations and generative questions from the feedback.
AFFIRMATION
WOW!
A massive task so well done!
A journey shared by teachers and students
Great to hear about the development of student articulation (oral language skills)
Appreciated how the Learning Journeys were context specific and differentiated.
Could see a real community of learners evolving
Great to see a big staff devlop shared commitment in such a short time
I liked the well developed change process
Loved to see the focus on students
Great management of a large staff
Exciting energy
Students obviously had authentic purposes for learning
Powerful dialogue and work at the stage level
Like the goal setting?
GENERATIVE QUESTIONS
What has been the impact on relationships between parents and the school?
Have you thought about looking at other research in this area???
How do you envisage parent angagement will be developed further?
Sustainability and maintenance of initiatives - How will you plan for and ensure this?
Have you thought about tracking the current Kindergarten cohort through to Year 6?
How will you manage the student who said they weren't engaged?
How will you manage the focus across all KLA's - (scope and sequences?)
Where did the teaching of the process happen? How did you fit it in?
16 August 2011
Yesterday our staff met with the staff from Condobolin and Trundle for our mid-point gathering. What a great day it was! We heard all about the wonderful work that has been happening in both schools thus far with their LTLL Projects. It was just fantastic to see the great team work that is happening in both schools and to see how excited they are about their achievements. Well done to everyone!
I have to also say a big THANK YOU to the staff at St Laurence's for their hard work leading up to the mid-point gathering and their hard work this year with our LTLL Project. We are onto a good thing and it is so exciting!!
Thank you Charles and Jane for your guidance yesterday at our gathering. We appreciate your time. Thank you also Jane for taking the time to upload our affirmations and generative questions. These 'warm and fuzzies' keep us powering forwards on our great journey!
Below is a link to our mid-point presentation that we shared at the gathering.
Wow, term 4 already! Term 3 saw us continue with our Learning Journey initiative as part of our LTLL project. Each student took home a Learning Journey to share with their parents over a weekend. We wanted a more consistent approach across the school this term so as a staff we decided to focus on the following KLAs as part of the reflection process: Religion, Literacy, Numeracy and our Musical Production of 'Once Upon a Time'. With this terms Learning Journeys, we sent home another survey for the parents to complete for each of their children. The feedback from parents was very pleasing, with many more surveys being returned this term compared to Term 1 and Term 2. Below is a link to the parent survey that was sent home with each student at our school.
Last Monday we came together with the staff of St Patrick's in Trundle and St Joseph's in Condobolin for our final LTLL gathering. It was terrific to see where the LTLL Project had taken all the schools since our Mid-point gathering in August. Each school provided fantastic evidence to back up the amazing work that everyone has been doing. The staff of St Laurence's really enjoyed listening to the other schools present their achievements, whilst also understanding where each school will be going with their learning in the future. Well done to all the staff at Trundle and Condo!
Thanks again to Jane and Charles for coming along to listen to us present our final LTLL Project. Thanks to the LTLL Project, we have implemented great initiatives into our school to benefit and assist the skills and knowledge of both the staff and students. It has been such a great and worthwhile learning experience that has created excitement and motivation within our staff group. It also holds great value as it is not just a 'once off' thing, rather the beginning of something great that we can sustain in our school as part of our common practice. We have set the much needed foundations which will allow us to continually build upon what we have already achieved to make it GREAT!!!
Below is a link to our final LTLL presentation that we shared at our last gathering.
29 March 2011
Our school participated in the LTLL training on the 15th and 16th March 2011. Over these two days we came up with focus areas and reflected deeply as a whole staff. We were unable to complete our action plan during these days so since coming back to school, I have completed a draft action plan for our focus areas. Our focus areas include:
· Focus 1: The Transformed Learner
· Focus 2 & 5: Teacher as Leader & Educative Leadership (Leadership for professional learning) - we put these two focus areas together because we thought they married up very well for what we want to achieve.
· Focus 6: Authentic Learning (Assessment FOR and AS learning)
I will be taking the draft action plan to a staff meeting so we can discuss it and make any necessary changes. I am also currently working on a draft time table to go with our action plan. When both have been completed, I will upload them on our page.
The wheels are in motion and there is an excited buzz in the air as we begin this process!
Jacqui Dwyer :)
(Lead Teacher)
10 May 2011
The link below is our completed Action Plan.
We have also devised a Term Overview outlining what we will be doing throughout the term for our LTLL Project.
After our LTLL Professional Development days, together we came up with practical ideas that will help us with Focus 2 (Teacher as Leader) and Focus 5 (Educative Leadership - Leadership for professional learning). As part of this we came up with the idea of using the expertise of our fabulous staff and allowing them the opportunity to run workshops in the areas that they are so called 'gurus' in! The staff will identify areas that they would like to improve their knowledge and skills in and the Workshops will be organised according to the requests of the staff. The Workshops will be scheduled into our LTLL Term Overviews throughout the year. Please see the link below for the Teacher Survey.
25 July 2011
It has been a while since my last post on the Wiki! Term 2 was an extremely busy term and we have achieved a lot during that time. The staff completed the LTLL Teacher Survey and identified areas in which they would like Professional Development to improve their knowledge and skills. The link below is the results of this survey.
The below link is an updated LTLL Term 2 Overview.
During Week 6 of Term 2, I facilitated a staff meeting to inform the staff where we were up to in regards to our LTLL Project. At this staff meeting, we also participated in a hands-on professional development opportunity (Workshop 1 - IWB Training). This PD opportunity allowed staff members in our school to share their knowledge and skills in this area with those who had asked for more PD opportunities with IT (IWB). It was very successful!
2 August 2011
A major initiative that we have implemented into St Laurence's as part of our LTLL Project is 3 Way Reporting/Learning Journeys. We found that this initiative fitted in very well to all the LTLL Focus Areas that we had decided on as a staff. We started this initiative in Term 1 across the whole school. Each class focused on the individual student reflecting about their learning and taking home a learning journey to share with their families. After the students' learning journeys went home in Term 1, the parents completed a survey to provide feedback on the process. Term 2 saw the inclusion of the 3 Way Reporting process. This involved the student, their parent/s and their teacher. The students took their families on a journey of their learning in their learning environment. After the 3 Way Reporting in Term 2, parents, students and teachers were all surveyed about the process. There is a link below of each survey that was asked to be completed.
Once the surveys were completed and returned, the data was collated. Some very interesting and positive findings were evident. Below are links to the parent and student survey results. I have also included links to the comments made by both the parents and students.
15 August 2011
The teachers from Forbes have just brilliantly completed their mid-point presentation. The participants and audience were all energised and enthused by the description of their learning journey. The following is a summary of some of the affirmations and generative questions from the feedback.
AFFIRMATION
WOW!
A massive task so well done!
A journey shared by teachers and students
Great to hear about the development of student articulation (oral language skills)
Appreciated how the Learning Journeys were context specific and differentiated.
Could see a real community of learners evolving
Great to see a big staff devlop shared commitment in such a short time
I liked the well developed change process
Loved to see the focus on students
Great management of a large staff
Exciting energy
Students obviously had authentic purposes for learning
Powerful dialogue and work at the stage level
Like the goal setting?
GENERATIVE QUESTIONS
What has been the impact on relationships between parents and the school?
Have you thought about looking at other research in this area???
How do you envisage parent angagement will be developed further?
Sustainability and maintenance of initiatives - How will you plan for and ensure this?
Have you thought about tracking the current Kindergarten cohort through to Year 6?
How will you manage the student who said they weren't engaged?
How will you manage the focus across all KLA's - (scope and sequences?)
Where did the teaching of the process happen? How did you fit it in?
16 August 2011
Yesterday our staff met with the staff from Condobolin and Trundle for our mid-point gathering. What a great day it was! We heard all about the wonderful work that has been happening in both schools thus far with their LTLL Projects. It was just fantastic to see the great team work that is happening in both schools and to see how excited they are about their achievements. Well done to everyone!
I have to also say a big THANK YOU to the staff at St Laurence's for their hard work leading up to the mid-point gathering and their hard work this year with our LTLL Project. We are onto a good thing and it is so exciting!!
Thank you Charles and Jane for your guidance yesterday at our gathering. We appreciate your time. Thank you also Jane for taking the time to upload our affirmations and generative questions. These 'warm and fuzzies' keep us powering forwards on our great journey!
Below is a link to our mid-point presentation that we shared at the gathering.
11 October 2011
Wow, term 4 already! Term 3 saw us continue with our Learning Journey initiative as part of our LTLL project. Each student took home a Learning Journey to share with their parents over a weekend. We wanted a more consistent approach across the school this term so as a staff we decided to focus on the following KLAs as part of the reflection process: Religion, Literacy, Numeracy and our Musical Production of 'Once Upon a Time'. With this terms Learning Journeys, we sent home another survey for the parents to complete for each of their children. The feedback from parents was very pleasing, with many more surveys being returned this term compared to Term 1 and Term 2. Below is a link to the parent survey that was sent home with each student at our school.
Below is a link to the updated Term 3 LTLL Overview.
6 December 2011
Last Monday we came together with the staff of St Patrick's in Trundle and St Joseph's in Condobolin for our final LTLL gathering. It was terrific to see where the LTLL Project had taken all the schools since our Mid-point gathering in August. Each school provided fantastic evidence to back up the amazing work that everyone has been doing. The staff of St Laurence's really enjoyed listening to the other schools present their achievements, whilst also understanding where each school will be going with their learning in the future. Well done to all the staff at Trundle and Condo!
Thanks again to Jane and Charles for coming along to listen to us present our final LTLL Project. Thanks to the LTLL Project, we have implemented great initiatives into our school to benefit and assist the skills and knowledge of both the staff and students. It has been such a great and worthwhile learning experience that has created excitement and motivation within our staff group. It also holds great value as it is not just a 'once off' thing, rather the beginning of something great that we can sustain in our school as part of our common practice. We have set the much needed foundations which will allow us to continually build upon what we have already achieved to make it GREAT!!!
Below is a link to our final LTLL presentation that we shared at our last gathering.
Affirmations from Final Presentation
Generative Questions
How did you develop the staff confidence for collegial visits? How will you keep it going?
What are the conditions that make the collegial visits so successful?
Would you consider getting better information from the successful survey by asking why?
How will the professional learning teams be embedded into the school structure?
Could you consider a goal setting process?